


Mall Mishaps

by TheWitchBoy



Series: TimKon: Young Justice Universe [3]
Category: Teen Titans - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: ADHD Mentioned, Bart and Tim Both Have ADHD, Canon Compliant - Young Justice, Clark Kent is Trying to be a Good Dad, Conner Kent "moms" his dad a bit, Conner Kent is Perceptive, Conner is lowkey mom friending (still), Dick Being a Good Brother, Gen, Kent Farm Mentioned, M/M, Ma and Pa Kent - Mentioned, Mentions of Anxiety, Minor Anxiety attack, Mostly Steph but also Tim, Peripheral Bluepulse, Return of the Sunglasses (which are and have always been a 90s Kon reference), Secret Identity, Secret Identity Fail, Slice of Life, Stephanie Brown is a Good Friend, Tim Drake has Anxiety, Tim Drake is Robin, profanity warning, young justice invasion - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 17:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11650884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWitchBoy/pseuds/TheWitchBoy
Summary: When Conner had first handed him those ridiculous 90s reject sunglasses, Tim hadn’t thought much beyond the obligatory appreciation for an accessory so garish that it was almost cool. Tim hadn’t expected to get so attached to those sunglasses, and he certainly hadn’t expected his attachment to those ridiculous sunglasses to cause him this much trouble.





	Mall Mishaps

**Author's Note:**

> Summary was written first to remind me what I was writing, so it's actually... only loosely accurate, at this point.
> 
> Many thanks to origincounty, without whose recent comment/s on Sleep Before Suffering, I probably wouldn't have finished this for another few weeks, at least.
> 
> It's probably possible to read this as a one-off? But I suppose I recommend reading Part 1 first, if nothing else. That's where I lay down a few headcanons that remain applicable throughout (such as: mom friend Conner, the 90s sunglasses, and Tim's... varied issues, haha).
> 
> Unbetaed - feel free to point out my (probably many) mishaps.

POV: Tim

\--

Sometimes, you choose your friends.

Sometimes, your friends choose you.

And _some_ times, someone from the future goes back in time with the express intent of changing the future, knows your secret identity (blowing it in front of a younger teammate), and ultimately breaks the “no metas allowed” rule to run into Gotham to pester you, at your home.

“What the hell, Bart,” Tim sighed, preemptively weary. He didn’t particularly want to let Bart into his house, since the maid service wouldn’t be visiting again until after Mr. and Mrs. Drake were back from their respective trips.

In that vein: thank god Mr. and Mrs. Drake weren’t home, because Tim wasn’t entirely sure how to explain Bart away.

“Well, see, Jaime was busy and I was bored. I was just sittin’ around the Mountain thinking ‘oh what could I do today?’ and thought, oh, maybe go see Gramps and Gram, or head to Wally’s to see his dog again. But then I remembered that I saw Wally yesterday and I live with the Garricks who live pretty close to the Allens and I see them all the time, but still, Jaime was busy…”

“Bart,” Tim ran a hand down his face. He wasn’t supposed to be there. He wasn’t supposed to know who Tim was or where Tim lived.

“Long story short I thought about who I could hang out with and remembered how close we are! Well not close as in friends, but close in age, but you probably knew that, unless we became friends when I wasn’t paying attention and now we’re suddenly super close or something,” Bart went on.

“Bart,” Tim tried again.

“And I know how little downtime you get and how little off-time you have, because Bats and Gotham and the Mountain and the Team and all the training with the Big Bat himself and Black Canary and the Team and…”

It was promising to be a long day. “I’m heading to the mall,” Tim cut in. He was weighing the pros and cons of inviting Bart along versus trying to convince Bart that he either shouldn’t go, or didn’t want to go. He sighed again, running his hand through his hair. “I’m going with my friend Steph,” he said, cutting into the first few syllables of whatever Bart had been going to ramble next.

“Oh! Ohhh! I get it, I get it,” Bart said. He, very frustratingly, did not ‘get it,’ though. “You have a lady friend and you wanna spend time with her and make advances and stuff – which is cool! – I kinda read about courtship in the 2000s and it was a really interesting subject but I just have no knowledge of any of that because I was constantly…”

“Bart. For the love of god,” Tim could feel the very beginnings of a headache. How did Jaime put up with this? “It’s fine. I was going to say that you could come. Steph and I aren’t dating.” Anymore. “Just… don’t mention Bats or the Team.” He was going to live to regret this.

He sighed and stepped to the side to let Bart into his house. “Don’t touch anything, I just have to finish getting ready and we can go.”

“What? Why? You look ready now, all you need to do is put on some sneakers and you can hoof it wherever – are we going to hoof it? Are we going on a bus! I’ve never been on a bus before, that would be so crash! Do you…”

“Bus. Yes,” Tim said. “I’ll be down in just a minute. I’m going to just…” Tim shook his head, making an aborted motion toward his hair. Dick – whose need of a haircut honestly left him no room to talk – liked to tease him about his obsession with hair gel. “I’m just going to grab a pair of sunglasses,” he said, giving up. It probably wasn’t safe to leave Bart alone while he went into the bathroom to style his hair, anyway.

\--

Public transport was, apparently, completely unheard of in Bart’s future. It was some kind of weird urban myth. People all climbing into one vehicle to get to their various destinations? A vehicle with planned routes and drivers actually paid to do those rounds? Apparently aliens were less alien.

Tim had his sunglasses – the red ones that Conner had given him – pushed up in his hair to hold it away from his forehead. Dick may have been the Bat most in need of a haircut, but Tim wasn’t exempt from that particular need. The gel made it a heck of a lot less noticeable, though, and Tim felt obscenely self-conscious without his “helmet of gel” (as Dick had coined it).

“Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim…” Bart was saying.

Tim, however, was keeping his eyes trained on the screen of his phone and chewing two pieces of caffeinated bubblegum, which was becoming more and more of a staple in his day to day life, sadly.

“Tiiiiiim,” Bart drew out. “Oh my god this is so cool – can you imagine going on a bus every day and seeing these sights all the time and – hey, are you okay?”

No, Tim was not okay.

Tim choked on a bit of his saliva, which was only slightly better than choking on his gum. “Bart, lots of people ride the bus every single day. To and from work. To and from the mall. To run errands. Public transportation is a staple of city living.” He glanced over at Bart, brow furrowed. “I guess we’ll go on the subway next.” It came out a bit begrudging, but if Bart was supposed to assimilate into 2016 living, he might as well experience actual public transport. “Steph rides the subway everywhere.” He returned his eyes to his phone with a shake of his head.

Bart’s eyes had gone as wide as saucers. If Tim looked too long, he’d find the expression almost endearing. And then he’d be screwed (probably).

Bart was relatively quiet through the next two bus stops. The quieter he was, and the longer he maintained his quietness, the more agitated and concerned Tim found himself getting. Tim was frustrated with just how many concerned glances he caught himself sending Bart, whose eyes were trained on the bus window.

“Okay, this is our stop,” Tim said. “Steph is going to meet us – well, me,” come to think of it, Tim realized that he should have probably warned her that they had a bit of a tagalong. An auburn, talkative, severely ADHD tagalong (with superspeed), “—at the frozen yoghurt place inside the mall. Uh,” Tim glanced at Bart again, as Bart stood from the seat he’d taken up. Tim had ridden the whole way standing, hand braced above himself and back leaned against the solid surface of a bench’s side. “I’ll treat you,” he said, feeling another dose of weariness.

Bart lit up, though. Food was already the way to a man’s heart. A speedster? It was something of an express lane.

Tim lead Bart off the bus, as it came to a full stop, and turned his attention back to his phone to tap out the text to Steph. He was stuck, for a moment, on how to describe Bart. “Friend” didn’t seem quite right, and “friend of a friend” sounded worse, on top of almost untruthful. Unless Conner and Bart did a lot of hanging out behind the scenes.

Hell, even Conner wasn’t a close friend.

“Family” was a stretch, at best. “Neighbor” was an outright lie Steph would catch him in, mostly because Tim’s immediate neighbors didn’t have kids, and the Waynes didn’t necessarily have _neighbors_ to have kids.

[Steph. Have a tagalong.] was the text Tim settled on.

Steph’s response was immediate. First was a bombardment of emojis ranging from vaguely sad, to betrayed, to intrigued. Some people spoke Spanish as a second language (clearly not Bart), others spoke “text.” Steph could probably text faster than she could talk. Yeah, she was no speedster, but she could pick up some verbal speed when she wanted to.

[who is it?? they cute??? number?? #???] Steph’s first word-text was, and it was followed by hearts and more emojis. She probably wasn’t serious.

Tim sighed through his nose and started tapping at the screen again. The last text, clocking in at a grand total of four words, had taken Tim an agonizingly long minute and a half to compose.

“You do a lot of that, you know? Sighing and stuff,” Bart gave an emphatic, but fast, sigh to illustrate, “I mean, it’s fine, but you don’t do it as much at the Mountain or in costume or on missions or over comms or in your head or any of that other stuff. Actually, maybe you do do it in your head? I haven’t been in the mind link many times and I suppose I could have missed it since we’re not even always on the same team – haha, wait, we’re on the same Team, but not team. Squad. Thing. Yeah.”

As Bart was talking, and Tim was making an attempt to split his attention between Bart and agonizing over the next text message to send, another group of texts came from Steph. It looked like she’d latched on betrayal, a bit, with a threatening [I cant believe u brought last minute friend omg rude], but she also seemed intrigued. Much like Dick, Steph managed to catch on to how little friend making Tim did, and – also much like Dick – Steph was a bit concerned about it.

“Exasperation,” Tim offered to Bart. [14 or 15. Talks a lot. Looks like Wally, if you remember him, but younger and a string bean.]

As per usual, Steph’s response was almost immediate, and preceded by emojis. This looked like a string of vegetable shaped emojis, which either meant she remembered Wally (by his appetite?) or was some obscure texting code that Tim would have to Google extensively to understand.

[nvm the # then. sounds adorbs. eta?]

Of course she remembered Wally. Steph hung around Tim enough to know Dick, and – even if Dick and Wally were going through a rough patch – Dick and Wally hung around each other enough (and around Gotham enough) where Steph had met Wally once or twice.

“So you don’t get exasperated when you’re Robin?” Bart asked. And it was a little quick, sure, but was a shockingly short question, compared to the rest of the blocks of speech Bart had had up until then.

“No, I’m better at hiding it,” Tim almost drawled, around his gum. He wasn’t behind the mask, which made it a bit easier to function like a proper person. He nudged Bart in the direction they were going to be walking down the sidewalk.

Bart didn’t exactly make it hard to be exasperated, in any case. There was something about his unending energy and faux smiles that rubbed Tim the wrong way. Or maybe it was how many people fell for the faux smiles that bothered Tim, he’d had enough experience with people who took a smile at face value to know that they weren’t usually the sort who made for very good friends, or who were invested in becoming anything other than superficial friends. The idea that people like that were on the Team was disconcerting.

On the other hand, not many people on the Team were very perceptive, it would seem.

[10 – 15min] Tim shot off. Sooner, if he felt like picking up his feet and getting there. He didn’t really feel like it, though. Steph was exuberant and extraverted enough, on her own. Bart? God, Tim wanted to take a nap just _thinking_ about spending the day with both of them at once. Way too much energy. Way too much outgoing nature. Way too much… noise.

Bart fell in step with him, but put a hand out to grab the edge of Tim’s shirt so that he could continue to gawk at literally (literally-literally) everything. Street signs were, apparently, incredible.

Granted, Bart wasn’t exactly from a future Booster Gold would be proud to talk about. (Oh god. Time dissonance. Which future was _the_ future, anyway?) Maybe signs were in bad disrepair, or absent altogether. Maybe Bart lived under a rock and never saw them. Maybe Tim was thinking too much.

“Never been to Gotham,” Bart chattered. “It’s huge! Holy crap look at those buildings, and the way they crowd the sky and is that even normal? Metropolis seems like it wouldn’t be like this, I mean, no, it’d be big, totally, but it seems like it has more space and sky and sun and happiness, and then Gotham has all these unhappy people and crochety buildings, and this is the _nice_ part of town.” Bart whipped his head in the other direction to watch a car with a particularly obnoxious muffler whip past, dodging and weaving through congested traffic and breaking several dozen traffic rules. “And the people in Metropolis are, like, so much nicer and happier and have eyes that say hi instead of eyes that say ‘if that’s a mugger I’m going to whack them into submission,’ do Gothamites even need saving from muggers and how many muggers are there? I heard one in every five people was a potential mugger!”

“Yeah, probably,” Tim shrugged and pulled through the crowd, confident that Bart could keep up if he were still latched on like that. “Especially in nice areas? For every three fancy suits, you’re also looking at a mugger and a beggar, or a mugger and someone looking to get employed after years of unemployment. Gotham’s bad that way.”

“So the stories aren’t exaggerated?” Bart asked, a bit more solemn.

“I don’t know,” Tim shrugged again, turning left into the gaping maw of a building. “Crime Alley is called Crime Alley for a reason, and a lot of the southside stuff is dripping with bad company. But muggers hang around the more urban and metropolitan centers. You can’t make a buck off people who don’t have two pennies to rub together. And who mugs a loan shark or a gangbanger?” Granted, some Gothamite muggers were just that brand of stupid-slash-desperate. But that was another can of worms that made Gotham sound even more depressing.

“Yikes. No urban exploring then, huh?” Bart asked. “I mean, I’d love the grand tour, but that sounds like something you don’t do in civvies, huh? You don’t want to go around tempting fate when you can’t do anything about it, which I still don’t get. If you’re in civvies, you can’t beat up people? I should be able to just do what needs doing, not meander around and let my wallet get taken and emptied and dumped and my face get rearranged by people with no right to be arranging faces…”

“We don’t want to tempt fate, no,” Tim interrupted. Bart quieted, probably taking in the mecca of food courts in Gotham. Almost every type of food was represented, and a bunch of them were represented twice. “Hungry?” Tim asked. He checked his phone. If they took a place without too much of a line, Steph couldn’t complain about them being late.

“Uh, always,” Bart said.

“Gyros it is,” Tim tugged him towards a purported Greek food stall. Purported because the “Greek” food was too oversimplified and Westernized to really count, anymore. There wasn’t a line, and Tim wasn’t willing to give Bart a choice when there was a particularly authentic looking Tex-Mex place with a thirty-person line on the other side of the food court. Anything that screamed “Jaime” had “Bart” written all over it, and Tim wasn’t waiting in that line. Nope.

[Gyro?] Tim texted.

Steph’s response was about fifty heart emojis and heart-eyes emojis. Tim waited for an actual answer, since Steph liking gyros wasn’t the mystery – Steph being hungry for them was. Steph pulled through, after abusing the emoji list for a few more messages. [yes pls, xtra tsaziki.]

[It’s tzatziki]

[& ur a stick in the mud] Steph’s next text retorted.

[A stick in the mud who’s buying you food.]

[luv u boi]

Tim made a face at his phone (how much butchered English did he have to put up with?) and put it back in his pocket as he stepped up to the counter. “Four beef gyros, one with extra tzatziki,” he said. He lifted four fingers in emphasis, then retrieved his card from his back pocket. Well. The card Bruce had given him. He wasn’t about to feed a speedster on his own bank account, thanks.

Gyros in hand (and he actually pronounced that right, by the way – YEE-roh, not JEYE-roh), Tim and Bart made their way to the fountain where Tim had prearranged to meet Steph. Bart was over the moon, with a gyro in either hand. He continuously gushed about how good they were, and Tim made plans to purchase headphones, that he didn’t really need, just so he could put them on and block out a little of the headache-inducing rambling that he’d been putting up with for way too much of the day, already.

They saw Steph a few minutes later, in front of the frozen yoghurt shop and ready to leave said shop. Eh, Tim didn’t need more treats, anyway.

“Sup, Timmers!” Steph greeted. She walked up to them and swiped one of Tim’s gyros, peeked inside it, then gave it back and swiped the other, instead. It should have been a lot easier to tell which one was hers, but no, she still grabbed the one that was being actively eaten, first. “Who dis?” she pointed an elbow at Bart, both hands clamped possessively around the gyro’s cardboard prison.

“Bart,” Tim said.

“He really does look like Wally, holy shit,” Steph said. “I mean, less red and lighter freckles, but god. And Wally’s uncle, the forensic dude that was stealing all the pancakes that one time.”

Bart lit up at the mention of his grandfather.

“Barry,” Tim offered, before Bart could turn on the faucet and give Steph a word-waterfall of praises for the second Flash. (Tim did his homework, thank you very much. He knew which heroes were legacies and which ones were originals.) “Yeah, this is Wally’s… cousin.” He motioned toward Bart, who waved a little bit too energetically.

“Cool, cool,” Steph said. “So. Did you bring him so you couldn’t get the fifth degree about Mystery Boy?”

“I think you might mean third degree,” Tim suggested. “And I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” He hoped he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t recall any mystery anyones that Steph would be interested in, unless she’d seen Dick hanging around with someone? Seemed unlikely, with Dick in Blüdhaven most of the time, though.

Bart looked overly interested, which Tim wasn’t exactly thrilled about.

“You know, the one whose shirt you stole,” Steph said. “Unless it’s a Mystery Giantess you stole it from.”

Bart lit up, Steph latched onto it. Tim felt the need for immediate damage control. The shirt? Oh god, that shirt. Why on earth would she want to know where the shirt came from. Or who it came from. It was just. It wasn’t even like that.

Conner? What the fuck.

Steph perked up, which spoke of words slipping, again. “Conner?” she asked.

Bart was almost vibrating.

First thing first, Tim put a hand on Bart’s shoulder to keep the vibrations from turning too metahuman. He levelled Steph with the most unimpressed look he could manage. “Conner,” he said. Or… repeated, he supposed. “I just needed to borrow it. No big deal. There’s no Mystery Boy or Mystery Giantess and Bart’s just here because…” he showed up on Tim’s doorstep. “He wanted to come.”

“Conner’s Tim’s friend!” Bart exploded. Luckily, it wasn’t too loud. Or embarrassing.

“Yeah.” Tim frowned a little.

“Oh my god, my little Timmers is making friends!” Steph gushed. And that was just. It wasn’t. It. It was a bit condescending-feeling. “Ahh! I gotta meet this guy.” She turned to Bart. “What? Tell me, total beefcake? Or does he hop in and go swimming in those shirts, too?”

“I’m not familiar with the term beefcake,” Bart said, which threw Steph for an obvious loop. She even stopped chewing for a second. “But his shirts fit him pretty well. I dunno, they seem a bit small, sometimes, but what would a ‘string bean’ – as Jaime says – know about filling clothing out?” Bart mimed muscles, with ridiculous bodybuilder poses. “He’s big.”

“Oh. Oh! Nice!” Steph turned bright eyes to Tim.

“He’s perfectly normal,” Tim deadpanned in correction.

“Yeah, well, you’d think that you of all people would know how big he is, being as small as you are next to him,” Bart chattered on. “He’s like head and shoulders taller and almost twice as broad,” which was an exaggeration, “and he could totally lift you with one hand, which I know he’s done because I’m pretty sure that little flippy thing you did would have landed on his head otherwise and we can probably agree that he’s more aware of his surroundings than to just allow a bird to perch on his head…”

“Bart,” Tim deadpanned sharply.

Steph was getting way too excited.

“Bart, that’s quite enough.”

“I thought you quit gymnastics!” Steph said, equal parts giddy and exasperated. “Is he a gymnast, too?”

“No,” Bart piped up.

“How about I buy you something expensive and you drop it,” Tim wheedled, pulling his card out to show Steph. Steph mulled over it with an unladylike bite of gyro. Bart shoved the rest of his first gyro in his mouth, magically managing not to spill even a drop of tzatziki sauce anywhere. Tim just waited, gyro suspended in midair, ready to be eaten once the problem at hand was solved and people stopped talking about Conner.

“Nice sunglasses,” Steph said, after swallowing. “Let’s head for Hot Topic. I bet there’s new Batman shit in there.”

Bart looked ready to start talking, again, but Tim gave him the sharpest look he could manage, and then took a bite of his gyro. Problem solved. Although, Bruce might wonder why a fifty-dollar Batman-inspired backpack was on the card he’d given Tim, later. Knowing Steph, it would definitely be a backpack, too. Steph preferred utilitarian items and thrift store clothing, for the most part. And had something against purses that Tim didn’t really understand, or want to understand.

\--

Hot Topic was something else. Tim could never tell if he actually liked it in there, or if he hated it in there. But, hey, the music was… okay. Sometimes.

Occasionally?

Eh. He liked Panic! At the Disco well enough, and knew enough of the words to enough of their songs that he could entertain himself while Bart and Steph did their perusing, and Bart asked about band tees, and Steph talked about band tees. Steph was unnervingly excited to have a willing audience for her spiels on Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance. They were okay bands, and Tim liked them, but he didn’t know how Bart could stand still for the information on them. Why did anyone know so much about them?

Tim busied himself with looking at the snapbacks, sunglasses, and belts. He didn’t really want to be _that person_ , but then… seatbelt style belts really were the best. And he was pretty sure he just found Superboy merchandise, not just Superman merchandise coincidentally coloured in Superboy’s colours of choice.

He was still chewing his gum, even though it had lost all its flavor, gotten hard, and started to make his jaw ache. He’d stopped blowing bubbles in it, but that was because he couldn’t, anymore. They all popped preemptively. He turned the possible Superboy snapback over in his hands, and felt himself stiffen when Bart showed up at his side. When had Steph released him from his lessons on Fall Out Boy member birthdays?

“Hey, that an SB hat?” Bart asked.

“Dunno,” Tim mumbled. He handed it over to Bart, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked off. A moment later, he had to de-pocket a hand to re-stabilize his sunglasses, which were threatening to fall off the top of his head. He didn’t look back at Bart, for fear Bart would think of something telling to say. It would be just his luck to have Steph realize she was hanging around not only Robin (Bruce still wasn’t happy about that knowledge being in her hands), but also Impulse. A speedster.

And if she connected the dots about Bart, she’d inevitably connect the dots about Wally and Barry. And if she connected the dots about _Wally_ , she’d probably realize that Officer Grayson was neck-deep into vigilante extracurriculars, provided she didn’t already realize that.

God. That would be just perfect, wouldn’t it?

“If it is, are you going to buy it?” Bart called to Tim.

Tim didn’t respond. He picked up a Wonder Woman wallet and frowned, thinking about the Robin that died on the job. It was a distraction, sure, but it was the most depressing one he could have possibly picked.

 

 

\--

POV: Conner

\--

Lots of things about Gotham were interesting.

Kind of?

The things that weren’t interesting, however, were the things he was running into, left and right. Yeah, okay, it was great that Clark was trying, but Conner didn’t sign up for “take your kid to work day” stuff. And he certainly didn’t sign up to be stuffed into a formal suit so that he could attend a stuffy event on the upper north side of Gotham.

“The Planet is interested in Gotham’s biggest events – the police balls and charity galas – because Metropolis just doesn’t do things the same way,” Clark said. Conner scowled at the tailor challengingly, only half listening to Clark. The needles wouldn’t hurt him, but they were annoying. “And because Perry is feeling generous, he told me I could bring a plus one. I think he meant I should take Jimmy. Or someone with a camera…”

“Yeah, I get it,” Conner said. He flinched as, yes, a needle poked at his skin. As previously noted: annoying. “So, you brought me. Which is why I have to stand here like a dummy and wait for this… process to be over.” The process being a fitting.

Since when could Clark afford to buy a suit made from the ground up? And for a one-off event, besides? Not even for himself. For Conner.

If Conner had to guess, he’d guess that someone interested in Clark and Conner’s “father-son relationship” was still giving little pushes. Even if those “little pushes” involved a suit that was worth probably a month or two of Clark’s reporter’s salary.

“Yeah,” Clark said. “Look, I know it’s not fun, but we can do something fun after.”

“Yeah, uh,” Conner shook his head. “I think I just want to kick back for awhile. The thing’s tomorrow, and I saw the reservations for tonight. I don’t think I could stand one more thing, on top of it all.” He flinched again. It was like the tailor realized it wasn’t piercing Conner’s skin, and had started poking him on purpose. He glowered at the man who was supposed to be doing the very simple job of pinning the hem of his dress pants up.

“Oh,” Clark sounded a bit hurt. But Conner was physically, physiologically, and mentally a teenager and he could only take so much. Bonding could wait. “Yeah, I guess I should get some work done, anyway,” Clark went on. “And maybe check in on things back home.” Yeah, sure, go on the job as a cape. Sounded fun. “You could grab lunch at the mall. I’ll leave you my card.”

Conner and the tailor both looked over at Clark, incredulous.

“Uh,” Conner said, eloquent. “Okay. I’ll just… make sure to…”

“I trust you,” Clark interrupted.

“Okay,” Conner repeated.

The tailor straightened, “Done.”

“Oh, thank god,” Conner muttered. Clark seemed to be mouthing something similar.

Clark was _trying_ , but that didn’t mean Clark was one hundred percent there, or succeeding. Or even making it much further than those first few baby steps. “You have your cell phone?” Clark asked, as Conner dismounted the tailor’s ridiculous little podium and headed for the dressing room.

“Yeah,” Conner said.

“Okay. And we’ll… meet up at the hotel before heading off for dinner?” Clark said. Or should have said. He posed it as more of a question.

Conner sighed, purposefully loud enough for the tailor to hear. Clark, with his superhearing, would have heard, either way. “I’ll meet you back at the hotel around… six. Reservation is at seven, right?” It felt weird, trying to be the adult in a situation you were literally sharing with your father. But, then, Conner was getting used to the “mature” roll. Ever since the younger heroes started popping up, he’d been pulling the “mature” roll more and more.

“Sounds good,” Clark breathed.

Conner exited the dressing room and shoved the pinned clothing haphazardly at the tailor, wrinkling his nose. “I’m not wearing that to the restaurant.”

“It’s for tomorrow,” Clark said, quickly. “You can just wear black pants and a button-up.”

Conner looked at him blankly.

“You… don’t have a button-up, do you?” Clark sighed.

“Just some Kansas plaid,” Conner shrugged.

Clark snorted. “Oh, super. Clothes I probably wore, twenty years ago.” Probably not quite that long. But he had a point. The plaids were all hand-me-downs that Mr. and Mrs. Kent had dug up for Conner, so that he didn’t have to wear his black tee shirts during chores. “Uh… you’ll be at the mall, right? You could find a decent shirt there. Put it on the card.”

He handed Conner his credit card, as he spoke. “Yeah,” Conner said slowly, looking at the card. “I’ll just. Do that. I guess.”

“I trust you,” Clark repeated.

“Uh-huh. It’s still kind of weird that you’re not even giving me a spending limit,” he gave Clark a look. “I’ll keep it all in the ballpark of fifty. Yeah, see, you’re having one of those mini heart attacks that television sitcom dads have all the time.”

“No. No, no. Fifty sounds reasonable for lunch, a nice shirt, and some spending money,” Clark said, clearing his throat.

“I don’t need an allowance,” Conner said, allowing Clark to steer him out of the tailor’s shop.

“Then call it something else,” Clark shrugged. “Look, we both know I’m pretty bad at this, just… work with me a little?”

“Fine,” Conner pocketed the card and shoved his hands deep into his jeans pockets. “Call if something comes up.” He felt like a television sitcom _mom_ , saying that. And that was just weird, and a little wrong, while he was talking to his literal, biological father. “Or text,” he tacked on, lamely.

“Have fun,” Clark said, “but not too much fun.” They both stood on the sidewalk for a long, awkward moment, then Clark waved and started walking away.

Conner waved back, out of the feeling of obligation, then turned his attention to his phone, which was nice enough to have a map function. How the hell would he find a mall in the middle of a city, otherwise? Which was, honestly, something else Clark probably should have thought of. Oh well. It was what it was.

Mall, lunch, dress shirt, hotel, dinner, hotel again, Wayne Foundation gala, then Conner could stop thinking about Gotham and “father-son time,” and get back to his life. He’d take Kent Farm chores over this weirdness, any day.

And he’d take a cheeseburger over something pricier and more complicated, any day, too. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until after the annoyance inspired by the tailor had worn off. Luckily, the mall was really close. Which meant that the ridiculous tailor place was situated near a building wherein there had to be at least two separate stores that purveyed cheaper, mass-produced suits. Conner would have considered killing for a mass-produced suit, instead of dealing with the monotony of this tailor.

And, before the tailor, it had been a book of fabric swatches and design samples and… Conner never wanted to help design a suit from the ground up, ever again, regardless of whether or not he would be the one wearing it.

Conner found his way to the mall in record time, probably. And, once he found the mall, the food court was just a hop and skip away. Purely metaphorically speaking, of course. Thoughts of cheeseburgers were still on Conner’s mind, which was why he found his way to the nearest fast food stall, once he found his way into the food court. Rather, the holy grail of food courts.

It was almost a shame that he wouldn’t be spending more time, there.

Then again, as lunch hour drew into its rush, Conner recognized just how crowded the place was going to get. So he got his cheeseburger (and fries and chocolate milkshake, thanks), and he made his way out of the food court. He didn’t need to do too much aimless wandering before he found a fountain, and the fountain had some nice, vacant seating nearby, which was where Conner had his lunch.

Knowing about running water was one thing, watching it was another. Conner never tired of running water and he never tired of fire. Those were two primal things that no amount of genome style learning could replace.

And the fountain was kind of pretty, besides. It was a bit too blue, with chemicals, and the white tiles under the water almost glittered with coins. There was the main fountain spout, and a series of smaller spouts staggered in concentric circles around it. The outer spouts were turned slightly outward, so that each spout was a pleasant little arc aimed vaguely toward the crowd that stopped to watch it, or toss a coin into the fountain. It was… nice. Conner even dug a nickel out of the forgotten depths of a pocket and tossed it to the fountain before leaving.

You were supposed to make a wish, but Conner stuck to the basics. Coin, fountain, done.

Next up, if Conner was trying to be responsible, should have been the button-up he was supposed to get for the restaurant reservation. But Conner reserved the right to, very occasionally, be irresponsible. So, he decided to put that off for a bit.

The allure of the mall didn’t really escape Conner. He could see how people liked the mall, and why people would want to hang around one. But he also found that it was hard to enjoy his time in the mall. There was just… no one to talk to or sit around with. It was just Conner, his thoughts, and several semi-interesting looking stores he could explore. If he wanted to.

Malls were probably more of a group activity. The type of thing you did with other people. Not alone.

But it was okay.

The stores were okay. The people were okay. The fountains and decorations were okay. Everything was just a solid shade of “okay.” Conner even found a carousel, which would have been a lot more interesting if he’d been around with someone hyper like Bart, or mischievous like Nightwing. Either one would probably have insisted on riding it, and Conner almost decided to do it himself, since he’d never been on a carousel (and this one was two tiers!), but he decided it would be too weird. He was a teenager, for all intents and purposes, and teenagers didn’t… seek out carousel rides, for the sake of taking carousel rides.

Right?

Only an hour into his wandering and Conner was almost ready to give up being irresponsible and take to searching out a proper button-up for dinner. Then he came across a store that was darker than most of the others (there was a shoe store and a skate shop that were similarly dark, but probably only half as interesting).

The music was what Kara would have described as either “trash” or “alternative,” depending on her mood and the particular song or band in question. It was darker and more to the negative side of emotions. Like the stuff Nightwing was into for the short duration of his “rebellious phase.” Angsty.

Not that he would admit it, but Conner kind of liked it. So, he entered the store, shoulders hunched a bit, and started to peruse.

The music was okay, the clothing was interesting (and sometimes weird), and the accessories were… well, Conner knew where he could replace his gloves, now, if he ever needed to, anyway. He crouched down at the glove display to paw through some of the variations of their fingerless gloves.

At some point, he ended up looking perplexedly through fishnet gloves. That… wasn’t exactly his style, thanks. But, while he was looking over the brightest pink fishnet glove in existence, he heard someone else in the store ask “Hey, that an SB hat?” It was said a little too loud and a little too energetically, hallmarks of ADHD and speedster chattiness.

Well, let’s be honest. ADHD was easily one of the most apparent “negative” side effects of speedster abilities. Some were just worse at compensating for it than others. Wally, for example, was a hell of a lot better at compensating for his ADHD than Barry or Bart ever were.

He didn’t hear the response, which was probably mumbled, but the question stuck in his head.

Not necessarily because it was about himself (sort of), but because the question was asked in a voice that was almost gratingly familiar. It made him tired, in advance of dealing with the person, which was both rude and weird.

“If it is, are you going to buy it?” the voice asked. It was on the move and Conner put down the glove to glance over his shoulder. He spied someone adjusting a pair of ridiculously rounded sunglasses in their hair, and if he hadn’t seen those sunglasses, he probably would have found the source of the familiar voice. But he was pretty sure he knew those sunglasses. Provided the lenses were red.

It was a very short, very nonexistent inner battle that Conner had with himself, before he got up to go over to the wallets and the sunglasses owner.

The voice gave up its possibly Superboy merch themed questioning, and Conner rounded the wallet display to find that, yes, those horrible sunglasses were horribly familiar because they were exactly like the ridiculous gag glasses he’d passed off to Robin, in the Mountain. For very legitimate Secret ID reasons, thanks. But still.

Even the fluffy hair that the sunglasses were probably supposed to be taming (they weren’t) looked familiar.

Yeah, okay. It was rude to stare. But Conner couldn’t think of anything to say.

And then there was a pair of startlingly familiar blue eyes on Conner. Robin had managed to show off the baby blues for a moment or two, on accident. And now Conner was face to face with them, again. Equally accidental.

“Uh,” Robin (was it Robin? It couldn’t be, right?) said, oh so eloquent.

“Uh,” Conner managed to respond, equally eloquent.

“Oh god,” Robin ran a hand over his face and, okay, definitely Robin. “Hey, um. Okay, this is really weird, but can I possibly get you to leave before…” Robin made vague circles with his hands, then stood, took Conner by the elbow, and made a beeline for the exit.

“Heyyy,” a girl interrupted the escape, sliding in front of Robin and Conner. “Who dis?” she grinned and pointed at Conner, and Robin looked so absolutely stricken. And Conner…

Conner was just kind of confused.

“You wouldn’t happen to remember Clark, would you?” Robin asked. He sounded so weary. So weary. Conner reached over to pat him awkwardly on the shoulder.

“That’s not Clark,” the girl said. “But yeah. Big guy. Glasses. Reporter. Usually hangs around Daddy Warbucks and reports on how nice he is to the orphans.”

“Don’t ever call Bruce Daddy Warbucks again, please,” Robin mumbled, running his hand over his face again. “Uh. This is Conner. Clark’s…” He puffed out his cheek, made a few vague hand motions, and shook his head.

“Son,” Conner cut in. He smiled and reached a hand out to the girl. “Nice to meet you, Miss.”

“Call me Steph,” the girl said. She peered at Robin very hard for a long moment. “You swallowed your gum,” she accused.

“Conner startled me,” Robin said, immediately defensive.

“It’s so bad for you!” Steph groaned. “God, you can’t do that. Ew!”

“I didn’t even mean to, this time!” Robin said, more defensive still.

That was when Bart popped up. “Hey, I think it really is a Superboy hat,” he said. And Conner blinked at him. It took Bart a long moment to realize that the group had grown a bit, and an even longer moment to realize who he was looking at. “Oh, hey. Conner,” Bart greeted.

“Bart,” Conner said slowly.

“Steph,” Steph cut in. She pointed at Robin, and the world stopped spinning, because she tacked on, “Tim.”

Which broke the Secret ID rule.

“I’m so dead,” Robin whispered.

Steph was the confused party, then. Bart and Conner shared a look, and both patted Robin on the shoulder. And, well, he kind of looked like a Tim, if Conner was honest. He could definitely see it.

There was a subjectively long silence. Objectively, it was probably about five seconds, but it felt a lot longer. At the end of it, Tim took the hat from Bart. “Yeah, I’m going to buy it,” he said, sounding for all like the world’s weariest teenager.

“So… Tim,” Conner started, rolling the name around in his mouth. “I wasn’t expecting to meet you here. Or today. Or at all? I mean. This trip. I’m here with Clark,” he glanced at Steph, then turned back to Tim, “I mean, my dad? That’s. Kind of weird. I bet he’d run out into traffic if I actually called him ‘Dad.’”

Tim snorted, nodding. “Yeah, uh. I wasn’t expecting you, either.” He broke away from all three of them and headed for the cash register. “What brings you to the mall?”

“Well, in order to look like less of a hick at a fancy restaurant, tonight, I’m supposed to be finding a button up that doesn’t look like Kansas and Uncle Sam had a baby, and that baby was red and blue plaids.” Conner took a few ticks to think about what he’d just said. “That was a horrible turn of phrase,” he rubbed the back of his neck and followed Tim over to the cash register.

Bart trailed behind, looking awed. “I’ve never heard him talk so much,” he said, at a very reasonable speed, to no one in particular. Whether he meant Conner or Tim was up for debate. But, he probably meant Conner.

“You don’t have any bags,” Tim said.

“I’m procrastinating,” Conner returned.

Tim snorted. “Me too,” he muttered. But, chances were, he was procrastinating dealing with the situation wherein he’d accidentally let his Secret Identity slip to a party who didn’t already know it, which put the entire “Bat Family” and their identities on the line. Conner was definitely smart enough to figure the rest out, from the information at hand. All he had to do was see Tim interacting with any of the Bat Family, out of costume.

\--

POV: Tim

\--

“I think he meant a white button-up,” Conner said.

Tim made a face, the kind that scrunched his nose and squinted his eyes. A definite part of the regularity of that expression were Tim’s occasional need for correctional lenses. You’d think he needed reading glasses, but he was actually slightly nearsighted. Don’t ask him to read street signs.

“Red is classy,” he said. “What’s wrong with a red dress shirt?” He plucked the shirt from the rack and held it in front of Conner, head tilted.

“This place is boring,” Steph interjected. “Why are we shirt-shopping?” She glowered at Bart, as if the speedster were the cause of the problem. He wasn’t, but Tim was busy ignoring her, and she didn’t know Conner. Bart was an easier mark.

“Uh, Conner needs a shirt for the thing tonight and Tim is doing the selective hearing thing where he cuts off one voice and zones in on another, I think it’s for damage control…”

“I know about the selective hearing. Tim was my boyfriend for a hot second, you know.”

“Oh,” Bart stopped for a long second. A very long second, for a speedster. Tim hazarded a look over him, frowning. “I didn’t think he…” Bart tapped his chin, gaze wandering. “What was that like?”

“Like arguing with a brick wall,” Steph snorted. She glowered over at Tim, catching his gaze for a second, before Tim turned back to Conner. As always, Conner was being observant. He had that thoughtful little frown that would have preceded an awkward question, on anyone else, but just spelled out “understanding” on Conner.

Tim sighed, dropping his gaze. “So. No to red?”

“No to red,” Conner agreed. “It’s too… bright for me.”

Yeah, Conner wasn’t much of a colour guy, unless he was wearing Clarks incredibly patriotic hand-me-downs. Reasons unknown, Tim had come across a picture or two of a teenaged Clark, before. In the depths of dusty photo albums that Alfred probably kept. Bruce probably didn’t know about them, or about their specific contents.

Uh… metaphorically dusty, that is. Alfred kept the whole of the Manor dust-free.

“How about black?” Tim put the shirt back on the rack. “Or dark red?”

“Go for black,” Steph said.

When Tim glanced over at her, he caught Bart looking at Steph through a new lens. The look on his face matched the look in his eyes – thoughtful – for once. The fake smiles would probably make a comeback, though. Bart couldn’t make it through fifteen minutes without his smile-shaped mask.

“I still think Clark meant white,” Conner broke in.

“Yeah, but white stains,” Steph said. “And you gotta wear something under it, because it’s not always gonna hide your pillowy man bosoms right. Or _my_ pillowy woman bosoms.”

“Or your pink pushup,” Tim muttered.

Steph reached out and whacked him, just missing the ridiculous sunglasses. “Yeah, okay, or my bra. Point is, black is lit for every occasion, and white sucks ass.” She rested her hands on her hips, leaning her weight on one leg. “Unless you’re willing to invest in a Tide pen to carry around.”

Bart’s thoughtful look broke into a confused one. “What’s a Tide pen?”

Steph whipped around to pin Bart with a look. “Are you fucking homeschooled?”

Bart blinked a few times. “Yes?”

Tim snorted at the way Steph deflated at that. “Sorry,” she said. “Okay, that was rude.” She went into an incredibly gracious description of what a Tide pen was and what it was (supposed to) do.

Tim returned his attention to Conner. “Black?”

Conner shrugged. “I’m blaming you, if Clark says anything,” he said.

Tim puffed his cheeks out for a moment, then gave a long sigh. The Secret ID thing was back in the forefront of his mind and that was… whelming. That was entirely whelming. Tim decided to be stressed later, though, and went over to the next rack to pull a black dress shirt off it. He put it up in front of Conner, frowned, then put it back. Too small. Not very flattering. “Most of these need to be tailored to look right. Stock shirts don’t cut it…”

“I think they’re fine,” Conner said. Tim glanced over to find an almost stricken look on his face.

Tim snorted. “Bad tailor experience.”

“You could say that.”

“I did,” Tim moved through the racks, Conner following, until he found a different rack of black dress shirts.

“Those look exactly the same,” Conner said, stopping next to Tim.

“These have a slimmer cut. They’re not big to compensate for a… more portly wearer, they’re cut for a…” Tim waved his hand around next to the shirt, the word escaping him. “Muscles. This is for a trim dude your size, the other one was for a thicker guy.”

“They look exactly the same,” Conner repeated, insistent.

Tim shook his head, pulled Conner’s size off the rack, and handed the shirt off. “Just trust me. I can also get you a better tailor. The kind that’s put up with various… attention deficient or distracted teens. He doesn’t waste time, and he does good work. I get my suits from him, have my shirts tailored by him.” He turned back to the rack, walking halfway around it to the red shirts in the same style. “I like this shade of red. You said something about a suit, right? Black?”

“I don’t need a tailor,” Conner said, following Tim again.

If Conner cared to look, he’d find Steph and Bart hovering around the edge of the store, watching Tim and Conner interact, like a ten-year-old might watch snakes in a reptile house. Interested, but still a bit cautious (depending on the ten-year-old, admittedly). Conner didn’t care to look and Tim was more surreptitious than outright with his observation.

“It’s a wine red,” Tim said, holding the sleeve out for inspection.

“Looks kinda purple,” Conner said.

“Well, it’s got more blue than the other red had, so I suppose it’s a shade of purple, but closer to the red axis than the blue one, by far,” Tim dropped the sleeve and rifled his way through the sizes until he could find a medium, which he held up to Conner, frowned at, and put back in favour of a large. “Are you sure you’re against the tailor?”

“Why?” Conner accepted the shirt when Tim handed it to him.

“You’re too broad in the shoulders for a medium, but you’re swimming a bit in the large,” Tim said. He indicated the shoulders of the red shirt in Conner’s hand. “A tailor could give you a proper fit.”

“It’s fine,” Conner said.

“Every fashion-conscious bone in my body disagrees with you,” Tim said.

Conner indicated the sunglasses perched in Tim’s hair.

“What…? Oh, that’s rude. And these were yours,” Tim said, defensive. Out his peripheral, he saw Steph start whacking Bart’s shoulder, which startled Bart into an almost defensive stance. To the tune of ‘why are you doing that?’ Conner shrugged and headed to the register. Tim re-steered him to the dressing rooms. “Oh no, you’re not buying anything without trying them for fit.”

Conner gave the most suffering sigh Tim had ever heard from a Super (and Kara was pretty big on the sighing), and begrudgingly let himself be lead to the dressing rooms.

“Besides,” Tim said to the closed dressing room door. “Do you plan to get both?”

“Why not?” Conner said. His voice shrugged, if that made sense. Tim figured Conner shrugged, but he couldn’t exactly see the Super to confirm the assumption. “It’s still around the amount Clark said I could put on his card.”

Tim shrugged in response. Which. Conner couldn’t see. “Up to you, I guess,” he said. He almost offered to put the purchases on his own card, but that was weird. Weirder. But that was weirder than rifling through dress shirts to find one (or two) that fit Conner and would pass as at least semi-formal.

As an honourary Bat, Steph had apparently adopted the ability to disappear from place A and appear in place B, without making a sound. That’s probably how Tim failed to notice her until they were almost nose-to-nose. “Stealing clothes?” she asked.

“No, cash register is the next stop,” Tim deadpanned.

Steph rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“I haven’t stolen anyone’s clothes,” Tim batted Steph away, catching the tip of her nose once. “I mean, unless nicking hand-me-downs counts.”

“Fashion conscious, my ass,” Steph scoffed.

Tim glowered.

“Your closet looks like it was infected by the 90s, Tim,” Steph snorted. “Hey, for Boytoy Wonder in there.” Tim was halfway to asking when he’d stopped being Boytoy Wonder when he, one, noticed the tasteful silk tie in Steph’s hand and, two, decided that he didn’t want to acknowledge that those particular words had been spoken, at all. “Suit, right? Suit usually means tie, black’s a classic,” she grinned.

She grinned a bit wider when Tim snatched the tie from her with a scowl.

“It’ll look great with the _wine red_ dress shirt.” Steph batted her eyelashes. Clearly she was having more of a ball, here, than she had been in Hot Topic, with the promise of a new backpack holding her over from asking questions about Conner.

Tim rolled his eyes.

“Gonna wear the hat?” Steph asked, pointing at the black shopping bag on the crook of Tim’s elbow.

Tim glanced down at the bag, then back up at Steph, he shrugged, then turned – with more than the appropriate amount of relief following him – as the dressing room door opened and Conner stepped out in the black shirt, mostly buttoned.

“Hot damn,” Steph muttered.

“It’s a bit tight across the shoulders,” Conner said, almost begrudgingly.

“Nope, it’s perfect,” Steph said. “You’re jacked, holy crap.” She eyed Conner up and down, which set of pulsating alarm bells in Tim’s head.

He ignored the alarm bells in favour of scratching the back of his head. “If it’s not uncomfortable, it looks like an okay fit,” he said. “What about the other one?”

Conner deflated a little. “Do I have to?”

Steph snorted.

“I’m going to go with a yes, here,” Tim rolled his eyes. He gave Conner a little push that wouldn’t have had a chance of budging Mal, let alone Conner, but Conner followed it back into the dress room, letting Tim shut the door behind him.

“I want to lick his abs,” Steph whispered.

“Whhhy?” Bart asked.

Steph startled at his appearance, but Tim just sighed again. Then pulled his phone out of his pocket to escape the ensuing conversation. He wanted a coffee. No, he wanted two coffees. Six espresso shots each. No cream, double vanilla, no foam. Hot. He sighed again, this time a bit more sadly. Steph was policing his caffeine intake, of late. It was one of the reasons he’d started on the caffeine gum… she hadn’t caught onto the caffeine part, yet.

“Why would you wanna lick someone’s abs?” Bart repeated.

“Um, hello?” Steph waved her hand in the direction of the dressing room. “Yum.”

“She’s exaggerating,” Tim mumbled. “It’s a Steph thing. She likes exaggerating, sarcasm, flirting, and mooching off relatively willing wallets.”

“And kicking ass,” Steph tacked on.

Tim raised his unoccupied hand and pointed at Steph in confirmation.

“So you don’t actually want to actually lick his abs?” Bart asked. You could “actually” hear the lack of punctuation.

Steph contemplated the question for a moment. “Dunno,” she settled on. “Maybe? Then again,” she reached over and pulled at Tim’s hem, getting his shirt up a few inches before Tim batted viciously at the offending hand and smoothed down his shirt, never looking up from his phone.

“Tim’s pretty ripped,” Steph grinned. “Never really felt the inclination to lick him, though.”

“Me either?” Bart offered.

“But still,” she motioned to the dressing room door again, “Yum.” She put a melodramatic hand over her heart. “There’s the kind of wholesome, good looking boy that Gotham just doesn’t produce.”

“Yes, because there’s so few black-haired, blue-eyed boys in Gotham,” Tim deadpanned into his phone’s touchscreen.

Steph snorted. “Not in the Wayne Manor, no,” she said.

Tim froze up a little, again. There were two things he didn’t want Conner (who had superhearing) to hear (or superhear): one, the Wayne or Drake surnames, because that was the last vestige of his Secret ID that was still secret, and two, … maybe just the one thing, after all.

Well. Tim supposed he didn’t really want Conner to hear the names “Bruce” or “Dick,” either. But that was different? Or was it the same. It was something.

Tim turned to the dressing room as the lock clicked back, again, and Conner stepped out in the red shirt, which should have had the same fit as the black shirt, but which seemed to have a bit more room to it. Maybe it was just the colour.

Steph gave a little squeal and twirled her pointer finger, most of the movement in her wrist, to indicate that Conner should turn for her.

The look on Conner’s face made Bart snort (probably) and Tim feel a bit better for a second. It was such a resigned, disillusioned expression. Like the one Bart had on his face when Kara had oh-so-helpfully shown him a Buzzfeed video about hotdogs, people eating hotdogs, and people reading disgusting facts about hotdogs while eating hotdogs.

Conner did do the requested turn, then gave the universal “are you happy now” motion, hands out at either side, a bit in front of himself, palms upward, with a little turn motion at the wrist and flick motion at the fingers. Almost a shrug. The shrug’s lazier cousin, maybe.

“It looks so good. That is definitely your colour,” Steph said. “Tim, remind me to take you shopping, sometime. You actually have a good eye. Who knew! Here I thought you were blind as a bat.”

Bart and Steph shared a snicker. Steph (luckily) didn’t notice the shared nature of the “bat” joke, but Tim felt another of his micro attacks of anxiety punch him in the ribs. From Conner’s concerned look, Tim could assume that at least one member of the group noticed the miniscule anxiety, which wasn’t worth mentioning. Much less noticing.

Conner returned to the dressing room, already unbuttoning his shirt. Steph fanned herself and watched him go. Tim didn’t like the way her eyes travelled south when Conner turned away, but then, Tim was a bit of a prude. As Steph had found out the hard way, those few weeks they were a legitimate item.

Were they together for more than a few weeks? Technically, yes. But, there was a quiet unravelling somewhere along the line, and they were a couple only in name after the initial phase. Long story. Not worth telling, really. (Even if there was a fascinating amount of weirdness toward the end, what with the baby, the faked death, the retiring and un-retiring… yeah, long story.)

Conner came back out of the dressing room looking about ten times as comfortable as he had looked in either of the dress shirts. “I’ll get them both,” he told Tim. “One for dinner, one for the suit. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Tim nodded. He motioned to the cash register. “Let’s get out of here?” he suggested.

Conner nodded absently as he pulled his phone from his back pocket and checked his messages and the time. “I’ve got to head out, soon,” he muttered. “Dinner reservations with good old Dad.”

“Still weird,” Tim snorted.

Conner turned at the noise, eyebrows raised. But, he was amused, too. “I should actually call him that. How did Karen put it? Flip out? He’d flip out.”

“I swear your friends are, like, aliens,” Steph muttered, sighing and shaking her head. And, okay, Tim could see how she’d think that. Conner had some minor issues with idioms, sometimes, and Bart – to Steph – was a talkative homeschooled kid who had no idea what a Tide pen was.

The irony was that only one of Tim’s present “friends” was an actual alien. Did that count as irony?

“Didn’t you say he’d run out into traffic if you called him dad?” Tim asked.

Conner waived the cashier’s offer of in-store credit and handed the two dress shirts to her. “I did say that, didn’t I? I’ll do it in front of people so that Clark has to play it cool, then.” He shrugged, then turned to slide his card, hit the red “no” button, and sign what looked suspiciously like an S-shield, all in quick succession. Not that anyone was likely to check the signature. It was enough that Conner knew his way around the card, probably.

“You’re a lot less wholesome than ‘Kansas farmboy’ would lead people to believe,” Tim said. He shouldered Conner out of the way, just as Conner received his bag from the cashier, and set the tie on the counter with three bills, two of them fives and the other a twenty.

“Kansas farmboy,” Steph echoed dreamily.

A glance over his shoulder confirmed, for Tim, that Bart was giving Steph one of his many confused looks of the day.

Steph snapped out of her fawning with a frown, though. “Isn’t the Clark dude a newspaper guy in Metropolis, though?”

“Yeah, Daily Planet,” Conner said.

“But you’re not from New York, like him? Or Jersey, like us, clearly.”

“Steph, enough of the third degree,” Tim said, mildly alarmed that he’d started that line of questioning, but still receiving his change and taking his bag from the cashier on autopilot.

“I thought it was the fifth degree?” Steph said.

“No, third. He corrected you, earlier,” Bart cut in.

“Kansas!” Conner spoke over them all, just a bit louder than them. “I live in Clark’s hometown with his parents.” He gave Steph an easy smile, smoothing over the confusion she had, and the alarm that Tim was displaying. He herded them out of the nice, dressy, slightly pricy store. “Ma and Pa. Clark lives in a Metropolis apartment and visits home about twice a month.” More like twice a week, but that was without plane-fare, business class seating, or backing an overnight bag.

“You call your grandparents Ma and Pa?” Steph asked, frowning.

“And I call my dad Clark,” he nodded.

Steph’s frown deepened.

“Hey, you’re from Gotham. Are you really in a position to judge?” Conner smirked. An actual smirk.

Tim scoffed and plucked the sunglasses out of his hair for the express purpose of shoving them on Conner’s face. “Wow, dis Gotham in front of two Gothamites. Careful, Conner, Steph will kick your ass.”

“Damn straight,” Steph said, pondering the interaction. “So. Why Kansas?”

They were out of the perfectly nice shop, and headed for one of the mall fountains, now. “Ma and Pa thought it was best. I’m…” he motioned to himself. “I guess you could say Clark was a bit young when I ‘happened,’” he shrugged. “Single career dad living in the city? Ma and Pa thought it’d be best if they took over, for him. Most of the time. And they didn’t like the idea of a big, city-based public school, anyway.” Never mind that he could have gotten a scholarship anywhere, public or private, with his intellect and someone like Batman watching out for him. He wasn’t even a special case, in that matter, though. Batman was watching out for all the legacies, as best he could. And all the more so – albeit from more of a distance – after what happened to Jason.

“Okay,” Steph nodded slowly. “Why are you in Gotham, then?”

“Clark had a plus-one. Guess he thought it was time for some bonding,” Conner shrugged, the awkwardness creeping back into his posture. “Or something.”

“Thus, the shopping,” Steph motioned to his bag.

“Thus, the shopping,” Conner agreed.

\--

They were about to part ways when Steph caught sight of the carousel. “One ride,” she said. “One!”

“I have to go…” Conner was trying to say. Trying. But, then, he was already gravitating toward the carousel.

“You can spare five minutes. It won’t even take five minutes!” Steph hopped up and down. “I love carousels! And ferris wheels! Best rides short of rollercoasters. Come on!” She skipped ahead of them. Well, it was more of the weird little hop-skip that went between a jog and a run. She wanted to hurry, but not appear hurried.

Tim sighed through his nose and nodded to Bart, who was absolutely thrilled to go the way of Steph, and then fell in step with Conner. “You look excited.” After saying it, he realized it was true. A bit lowkey, but true. He smiled.

Conner glanced at him and gave a lopsided little smile that had a nervous pinch between his eyebrows. Self-consciousness, then. “I mean, I guess? I’ve never gone on one, and this one’s huge,” he turned to look at the carousel again. It really was, too. Two tiers, heavily ornamented, with all the variations in horses, a few benches, two sleds on the top tier, one sled on the bottom tier… horses that reared, horses that rose and fell to the music box tune, horses that didn’t do much of anything.

“It’s nice,” Tim said. “Top or bottom?” he turned his attention back to Conner. He hadn’t entirely planned on riding, himself, but what was another dollar, right?

“Top,” Conner grinned up at the second tier of the carousel.

“That’s what she said!” Steph called back to them.

Tim rolled his eyes and stayed in step with Conner until they reached the bored man accepting their cash and letting them on the carousel. It was practically empty, but for a few children who all piled into one of the first-tier sleds. Bart and Steph claimed moving horses as soon as they hit the first tier, and Steph whooped at Tim’s retreating form as Conner and Tim took the stairs to the upper tier.

It wasn’t like Robins were afraid of heights, anyway. (Okay, actually, Dick _was_ afraid of heights – but that was where Dick got his thrill, apparently, defying his fear of heights.)

Conner looked ridiculous and content as he got on one of the horses. It was one of the rising and falling horses, like the ones Steph and Bart took. Tim took the sled two horses behind Conner, content to kick up his feet (literally) and just enjoy the slow turning of the ride.

“No horse?” Conner asked. Something childlike in him seemed to be disappointed.

“Nah,” Tim shrugged, settling in. The carousel started moving.

Conner, heedless of the movement (not that the Boy of Steel had to worry about anything), got off his horse of choice and went to the sled, instead. He leaned against it, “Aren’t the horses the point of the carousel?” he asked.

“I guess?” Tim shrugged again.

Conner answered shrug for shrug, then remounted, though this time he took the stationary, rearing horse next to Tim’s sled. “Well, at least you didn’t pick the bench,” he said.

Tim snorted, poking through his bags. He had nothing but the Superboy hat and the tie, though. So, there wasn’t much to look through. “Oh, hey, almost forgot.” He took the bag containing the silk tie off his wrist, where he’d let it settle next to his Hot Topic bag, and held it out. “I got you a tie. I don’t know if you have one already, for the suit, but whatever, right?”

He felt awkward, with the way Conner looked at him, almost wide-eyed and almost confused. But then Conner grinned and leaned over to accept the bag, meeting Tim halfway. “Thanks,” he said. “I hadn’t thought about a tie, actually.”

Tim’s Bat Senses told him that Conner was lying, but the thought was appreciated.

Then Conner took the tie’s box out of the bag and opened it, to look at the tie itself – the cashier must have lidded the box – and he looked mildly awed. “Okay, this is a lot nicer than Clark’s high school ties,” he said. He turned his smile back to Tim. “Thanks,” he repeated, a bit more heartfelt.

“Steph picked it out,” Tim said lamely.

Conner only shrugged, not put off. “Still.”

“You’re welcome,” Tim scratched behind his ear and glanced away. The carousel was coming to a stop. Before Tim had stood, though, he felt a pair of glasses find their way back to his hair. He reached up and, yup, those were the ridiculous sunglasses, back in their apparently rightful place. He looked up at Conner. “They’re yours,” he said.

“Uh, last I checked, they belonged to this guy named Tim,” Conner disagreed. He was already headed for the stairs. “Besides, I probably have another pair, somewhere. Kara keeps giving me weird things like that. Something about having more colour in my wardrobe.”

“You already wear red, though,” Tim go up and trailed after Conner, with a moderate amount of haste.

“I think she just likes the excuse to shop for things she wouldn’t necessarily wear, herself,” Conner said, stopping halfway down the stairs to look back at Tim. “And I guess she does that to Clark, too? He has some weird, cheesy ties that don’t look like Ma or Clark picked them out. Like a Batman tie.”

“No kidding,” Tim paused at the top of the steps until Conner started moving again. “That’s nice of her.”

“Sure, if you know what to do with a growing collection of weird, never-ending scarves,” Conner snorted and continued down the steps, Tim close at hand. “Infinity scarves?” he glanced to Tim for confirmation and exited the ride. “Yeah, those. I don’t know what to do with them.”

“Wear them?” Tim suggested.

“Yeah… I don’t think infinity scarves are what you pair with a patriotic plaid,” Conner snorted.

“Well, don’t wear them with plaids,” Tim pushed on Conner’s shoulder, laughing. “I guess I’ll see you around, huh?” Steph and Bart were already over near the doors, chatting back and forth with more gusto than Tim was comfortable seeing in either of them.

“Yep,” Conner nodded, popping the p on the end of the word.

As Tim and Conner neared the other half of their group, Steph and Bart lit up and half-ran in the other direction, toward the doors. Their enthusiasm wasn’t really a good thing, and Tim felt the sense of “oh shit” before he was given a reason to think it. Tim watched as Steph and Bart cornered someone just coming into the mall. Someone Tim vaguely recalled that he should have expected.

Tim pulled his phone out of his pocket, cursed quietly because it was on silent, and opened his unread messages. There were a few people he ignored, but when there was a bold “15” next to a Bat’s name, you usually didn’t ignore it. Fifteen unread messages and two missed calls, all from Dick, wasn’t a good sign.

A very real sense of dread came over Tim as he scrolled through the messages, all lower-caps the way Dick seemed to like it (Dick, smartphones auto-capitalized common names, the first letter in sentences, _and_ the word “I,” what are you doing?)

**5:29 – R. Grayson**

[when are you going to be at manor tonight?]

**5:32 – R. Grayson**

[tim??]

[alfred has your suit laid out]

[wants you to try it on for fit]

**5:33 – R. Grayson**

[text back please]

**5:41 – R. Grayson**

[tell me you didn’t forget the rsvp tonight]

[i can’t go timmers – work]

[if you’re ignoring me – please stop]

**5:42 – R. Grayson**

[you forgot, didn’t you?]

**5:44 – R. Grayson**

[i bet your phone’s on silent too]

[tim why]

**5:53 – R. Grayson**

[steph says you’re at the mall – i’m gonna pick you up]

[where are you?]

**5:56 – R. Grayson**

[nevermind where, steph said carousel]

[see you in less than five]

“You okay?” Conner asked as Tim put his phone away. A hand came down on his shoulder and Tim looked up to see actual concern on his face.

“I’m in such deep shit,” Tim announced, his voice pitched a bit higher than usual.

Conner snorted. “Oh boy,” he said. Tim repeated himself, much more quietly. “Uh, anything I can help with?”

Tim glanced past Conner at the man Steph and Bart had… what’s it called when people lie in wait and then flank or block off or bottleneck an enemy, usually from hiding? The man that Steph and Bart had ambushed. Tall, lean, naturally tan (to some degree – not enough sun, otherwise), with long black hair pulled into the laziest bun Tim had ever seen.

Tim almost laughed at the Superman shirt his “older brother” was wearing, but if he had let himself laugh, he didn’t think that he would have been able to stop. Or sound anything but hysteric.

Conner followed Tim’s gaze and clearly didn’t understand what the big deal was.

Tim could almost hear the knell of church bells, and not the happy kind, when Dick’s eyes departed from Steph and Bart and met Conner’s. Conner didn’t get why the apocalypse had descended on Tim, sure, but those shrewd blue eyes were a quick study. It wasn’t even recognizing Conner that would have done it, though. It was definitely in recognizing the minor anxiety attack Tim was having, next to Conner.

Okay, maybe not minor.

Conner turned when he heard the hyperventilating at his side, frowning. “Are you okay?”

“Yep. Yup. I just need to run damage control,” Tim muttered, both hands on either side of his head.

“No,” Conner said slowly, “You need to breathe.” He put a hand on Tim’s shoulder and actually started to breathe. It took Tim a moment to realize it was four-seven-eight breathing. Four seconds breathing in through the nose, seven seconds holding one’s breath, and eight breathing out through the mouth. Well. “Counts,” not seconds, necessarily. Tim followed Conner’s example, for once not feeling at all condescended to.

Tim blamed taking his meds late (and skipping a dose or two, accidentally) for the way his anxiety had ramped up into an attack like that, and tried to focus on the breathing and the blame, instead of the concern emanating from Dick. Steph seemed to be keeping him in place with a casual conversation about their shopping adventures – which probably included an account of Bart’s and Conner’s respective arrivals. It was a small mercy not to have Dick fretting, too.

Did the breathing exercise count as fretting?

“Better?” Conner asked.

“Uh. Sorry, thanks,” Tim said, awkwardly.

“Not really something you have to apologize for, I’ve gathered,” Conner gave a lopsided grin. “Sorry, I guess you’re not usually supposed to initiate contact out of the blue, when someone has an attack, right? I should have asked first, or warned you.”

Tim snorted softly, watching Dick extricate himself from Steph’s conversation. “No, it’s fine.” Conner was obscenely thoughtful, apparently. And practical with the information he had. “Thanks,” he repeated. “That… doesn’t usually happen.”

“It’s fine,” Conner said.

“Please, don’t tell the Team. Or B,” Tim mumbled.

“It’s fine,” Conner said, a bit more firmly.

Tim nodded, then let himself be caught in Dick’s side-hug.

“Hey,” Dick said. It was immediately clear to Tim, with the way Dick trailed off at the end, that he wasn’t sure how to address Conner, or the fact that Conner was standing with Tim (not Robin) in the middle of a mall. He turned to Tim. “You okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” Tim said, giving Dick a deadpan look.

Conner plucked his phone out of his pocket, shifting awkwardly away from the brothers, and checked the time. “Shit,” he muttered. Which startled Tim and Dick, both. Neither had heard _Superboy_ swear, before. “I’m late. See you around Tim, uh…” he glanced at Dick with a frown, sized Dick up, then shrugged, “You too, I guess, ‘Wing.”

Yeah, a lot smarter than the Team usually gave him credit for.

“Do we need to talk,” Dick said, glancing at Tim.

“Oh, really? Really. Because Wally was kept in the dark so long, right?” Tim muttered. He made a shooing motion at Conner. “See you,” he managed, while still giving a sideways frown to Dick.

“Touché,” Dick nodded, solemnly.

Conner was already late, so it wasn’t a surprise that he passed on any goodbyes longer than a wave to Bart and Steph.

“What about Steph?” Dick asked.

“I managed to dodge that bullet,” Tim ran a hand over his face. “So far. But she’s been chatting with Bart. I have no idea what she knows, at this point. But I think it’s still just me and B she has pegged. I hope. I’m in enough trouble.”

Dick’s snort was more obnoxious than Tim’s and Conner’s snorts put together. But it was also a bit more honest. Even if this one was a bit sarcastic. “I won’t tell,” he said, crossing his heart with his free hand. He started leading Tim toward the doors. “Did you get _any_ of my messages?”

“Yeah,” Tim nodded.

“Good, we’re going to be late, too,” Dick said. He guided Tim back over to Steph and Bart. “Alfred wanted you at the Manor before six, to make sure everything still fit right and there were no stains or tears and… whatever else it is Alfred does when one of us puts on a suit.”

“You texted about a dinner. I’m not wearing a tux to dinner, if that’s the intent,” Tim frowned.

“Uh, that’s for the gala, tomorrow. If something needs to be mended, Alfred wants to have time to get it to the tailor, before tomorrow,” Dick said, incredulous. “Did you forget the gala, too? Oh my god, Tim.” He stopped, stepped in front of Tim with a hand on either shoulder, looking him directly in the eye. “Look, I’m happy for you, but this is kind of important!”

“Slipped my mind,” Tim brushed it off, as well as the hands on his shoulders. “Won’t happen again… and what do you mean ‘happy for you?’”

Dick huffed and finished guiding Tim back to Bart and Steph. “Look, we gotta head out,” he said, giving his winning Wayne smile to Steph and Bart both. “Tim’s late, already, and I’m gonna drive him back.” He motioned toward the doors to the mall. “Bart, you should head home.”

Bart saluted. “Aye, aye.”

Steph saluted, as well, but much more lazily. “See you around, Officer,” she said. “And Tim.”

Dick rolled his eyes fondly. “See ya, kiddos.”

“Hopefully not too soon,” Tim muttered under his breath.

Tim was socially exhausted, already. He hoped he could talk his way out of dinner, if he already had an event he had to go to, within the next twenty-four hours. Chances were pretty bad, though, if Dick couldn’t play plus-one for Bruce’s reservation. Not that Tim could think of a reason Bruce would take one of the boys instead of a “hot date,” as he was so known for…

Did that not bode well? That probably didn’t bode well.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: the day after I finished this, I ate a gyro. My own ridiculous fic gave me gyro cravings.
> 
> I could have made this three chapters (of aroung 4k each - ish), but I prefer to post things they way they're written, and this was written with breaks to indicate POV shift, rather than chapter breaks. So... sorry, I suppose?


End file.
